Sounders on ‘probably the worst injury run that we’ve had’ in five years

The Sounders injury situation was a big topic at Monday’s practice as about 11 players are in some various form of recovery. Here are some updates from coach Sigi Schmid:

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(What injury updates can you give?) “Michael Gspurning is going to see a hand specialist tomorrow. He’s already been looked at and he’s in like a brace/splint right now. Obviously this weekend does not look good for him, for sure, and then we’ll get more of an idea once he sees the hand specialist. Brad Evans was still pretty sore today, got a little better as he trained … but he still has to get an MRI to get final answers on where he’s at. Djimi Traore we kept inside with his hamstring, and that’s more day-to-day, week-to-week type of thing.”

(Did Gspurning’s X-ray reveal a fracture?) “No, but it deals more with the tendons. His problem is not closing and opening. The turning motion is where the problem is.”

(How are Obafemi Martins and Shalrie Joseph?) “Oba trained today. We had Oba in the first part of training, then I pulled him out — I had seen enough from him today. He should be able to do a little bit more tomorrow. Shalrie was still inside today.”

(Are you comfortable with Andrew Weber if he’s going to be the starting goalkeeper for an extended period of time?) “Yeah, he’s been a big insurance policy now with two goalkeepers out. The only time I had it worse was in Columbus; at one point I was down five goalkeepers, and we actually called a guy out of retirement. If Kasey stays here long enough, he could be next.”

(How is Andy Rose doing?) “He’s making improvement. He jogged a little bit today, took part in the early part of the warmup. We have to see. At this stage not enough for this weekend yet, but who knows, it might change.”

(How frustrating have the injuries been?) “In five years here in Seattle, it’s probably the worst injury run that we’ve had, cumulatively. It seems all to have hit at sort of the same time and … the injuries have hit a couple positions. Obviously right now in goal being one and then the other thing when you look at wide players, as well, when you look at Zakuani being injured, Caskey having to go through surgery, Martinez not being able to return to the club. All of a sudden you lose three out of four wide players, as well. It’s been positionally significant that way. And in central midfield it’s been a revolving door for us, as well, which is an important part of your team. I look at lineups from other teams, and I’m like going, ‘Geez man, that’s the same group they played the last time.’ So now all of a sudden there’s some cohesion there in the middle of midfield because they’re playing together all the time. Hopefully we’ll get to that point this season, and we get to a point where it’s not too late.”

(Might it take longer for Gspurning to recover from this type of injury?) “Obviously a hand injury is less dangerous for a field player, because he’s not going to use his hands, but for a goalkeeper it’s an important part of what he needs to bring to the game. It’s a symptomatic thing: how quickly you regain your movement and how quickly you recover. Today he said it felt pretty much the same as it felt Saturday. He hasn’t made a lot of improvement.”

(Have you seen any common threads to the injuries? Any that could be avoided or just isolated, bad-lack situations?) “I mean obviously Gspurning’s is not something where you can point to overtraining or anything like that. You look at Evans’ injury when a guy bangs into him. That’s not related to that. You look at Oba’s injury, where he gets kicked and stuff like that. We have internally discussed, ‘OK, Andy with a hamstring, Marcus with a hamstring, and Djimi with a hamstring.’ Also with Ianni being injured from the start of the season, Djimi’s probably played more minutes than we expected at this stage. … So we always try to see a trend if there’s something we’re doing or not doing in training and if there’s something we need to change.”